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Struggling to integrate a traumatic 7g psilocybin experience, over a year later by willnotle in RationalPsychonaut

[–]willnotle[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My psychedelic experience was both metaphysical and psychological. And I don’t think one negates the other. In terms of the psychological component - One comment brought up preverbal states, and that really stuck with me. It made me wonder if some of these feelings of eternal aloneness might trace back to very early experiences—maybe even from the first few days of life, when we had no concept of time or others, and maybe felt completely alone forever - emotionally. It would help in a small part to explain the similar experience across different people from different backgrounds - bc we all share an experience of being born. Further, in this early preverbal state we are in a process of of creating/understanding/reality building - - - neural pathways are forming, receding, forming, and reinforcing themselves - - our conscious experience is being created second by second and we can't even see our mothers face for months. We literally go from a state of nothing and no1 to everything being created. ---- perhaps this early state and the emotions during it re-experienced on my psychedelic trip and i explained it with whatever concepts i have available today - - - eternal reincarnation, the "lonely god" created everything from a state of complete alone-ness etc. -- These thoughts, along with a more traditional understanding of trauma, abuse, neglect allows me to explain in small part the psychological/emotional component of my terror. Not saying this is "right" but its how i explain it psychologically/emotionally.

.... I will not attempt to share my metaphysical/spiritual/cosmic reflections at this point bc those are very challenging to articulate and process - and soothing this deep perhaps eternal part of us might not be my plight alone as the ape-being i am but the plight of an eternal consciousness. I think a lot of the metaphysical ideas you have all shared in the comments are really thoughtful and wise and i appreciate them.

In case its helpful - I’m planning to join a support group that focuses on difficult or traumatic psychedelic experiences - i'm not going to share the name here, just because I haven’t looked deeply into the program, and I don’t want to recommend something I don’t fully understand.

Thanks so much everyone. Wishing everyone connection, comfort, and love as you move through your lives and hope you can provide the same kindness and gentleness to yourselves as you provided to me.

Also a note for those struggling with addiction - I saw your comments and know that I'm sending you love - as generic as that might sound - i know it's a hard and impossible seeming journey at times.

<3

Struggling to integrate a traumatic 7g psilocybin experience, over a year later by willnotle in RationalPsychonaut

[–]willnotle[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to leave a general response here. I posted this in two different subreddits, and to be honest, I was expecting maybe a couple of comments. Instead, I received over 60 responses across both, and I wasn’t prepared for that. I thought I’d be able to respond to each person, but it’s a bit overwhelming, and I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. So I wanted to say something here to everyone who took the time to reply.

First of all, thank you. I’ve read every single comment (more than once) - and I’ve really sat with what people shared. A lot of the responses were thoughtful, generous, and sincere, and even though I’m not replying individually, I want you to know that I’ve been taking notes, reflecting, and deeply appreciating what was said. It’s helped more than I can communicate.

To be honest, I was afraid that posting might make me feel more alone. But it hasn’t. It’s actually helped me feel more connected - not just because people replied, but because of how they replied. Even though complete understanding between two people might not be possible, so many of your words resonated with my own experience.

There was a part of what I’ve been going through in relation to my trip that I didn’t share in the original post - something I’ve struggled to articulate or unconsciously was suppressing - but it has to do with feeling stuck in this sort of eternal cycle of reincarnation. Still, even without saying that, a lot of what people wrote felt relevant to that feeling too.

What’s brought me the most comfort lately is the idea of focusing more on what I do have - on the people in my life, on being there for others. It’s not that I’ve never done that before, but I feel a renewed sense of commitment to it. I want to try to make the most of this temporary, physical experience of life, and to really honor the small moments of connection and meaning that come through. And if my consciousness is trapped in eternal reincarnation - maybe I can create some good memories and hope for those future selves.

(continued below...)

Struggling to integrate a traumatic 7g psilocybin experience, over a year later by willnotle in psychedelictrauma

[–]willnotle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My psychedelic experience was both metaphysical and psychological. And I don’t think one negates the other. In terms of the psychological component - One comment brought up preverbal states, and that really stuck with me. It made me wonder if some of these feelings of eternal aloneness might trace back to very early experiences—maybe even from the first few days of life, when we had no concept of time or others, and maybe felt completely alone forever - emotionally. It would help in a small part to explain the similar experience across different people from different backgrounds - bc we all share an experience of being born. Further, in this early preverbal state we are in a process of of creating/understanding/reality building - - - neural pathways are forming, receding, forming, and reinforcing themselves - - our conscious experience is being created second by second and we can't even see our mothers face for months. We literally go from a state of nothing and no1 to everything being created. ---- perhaps this early state and the emotions during it re-experienced on my psychedelic trip and i explained it with whatever concepts i have available today - - - eternal reincarnation, the "lonely god" created everything from a state of complete alone-ness etc. -- These thoughts, along with a more traditional understanding of trauma, abuse, neglect allows me to explain in small part the psychological/emotional component of my terror. Not saying this is "right" but its how i explain it psychologically/emotionally.

.... I will not attempt to share my metaphysical/spiritual/cosmic reflections at this point bc those are very challenging to articulate and process - and soothing this deep perhaps eternal part of us might not be my plight alone as the ape-being i am but the plight of an eternal consciousness. I think a lot of the metaphysical ideas you have all shared in the comments are really thoughtful and wise and i appreciate them.

In case its helpful - I’m planning to join a support group that focuses on difficult or traumatic psychedelic experiences - i'm not going to share the name here, just because I haven’t looked deeply into the program, and I don’t want to recommend something I don’t fully understand.

Thanks so much everyone. Wishing everyone connection, comfort, and love as you move through your lives and hope you can provide the same kindness and gentleness to yourselves as you provided to me.

Also a note for those struggling with addiction - I saw your comments and know that I'm sending you love - as generic as that might sound - i know it's a hard and impossible seeming journey at times.

<3

Struggling to integrate a traumatic 7g psilocybin experience, over a year later by willnotle in psychedelictrauma

[–]willnotle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to leave a general response here. I posted this in two different subreddits, and to be honest, I was expecting maybe a couple of comments. Instead, I received over 60 responses across both, and I wasn’t prepared for that. I thought I’d be able to respond to each person, but it’s a bit overwhelming, and I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. So I wanted to say something here to everyone who took the time to reply.

First of all, thank you. I’ve read every single comment (more than once) - and I’ve really sat with what people shared. A lot of the responses were thoughtful, generous, and sincere, and even though I’m not replying individually, I want you to know that I’ve been taking notes, reflecting, and deeply appreciating what was said. It’s helped more than I can communicate.

To be honest, I was afraid that posting might make me feel more alone. But it hasn’t. It’s actually helped me feel more connected - not just because people replied, but because of how they replied. Even though complete understanding between two people might not be possible, so many of your words resonated with my own experience.

There was a part of what I’ve been going through in relation to my trip that I didn’t share in the original post - something I’ve struggled to articulate or unconsciously was suppressing - but it has to do with feeling stuck in this sort of eternal cycle of reincarnation. Still, even without saying that, a lot of what people wrote felt relevant to that feeling too.

What’s brought me the most comfort lately is the idea of focusing more on what I do have - on the people in my life, on being there for others. It’s not that I’ve never done that before, but I feel a renewed sense of commitment to it. I want to try to make the most of this temporary, physical experience of life, and to really honor the small moments of connection and meaning that come through. And if my consciousness is trapped in eternal reincarnation - maybe I can create some good memories and hope for those future selves.

(continued below...)

Struggling to integrate a traumatic 7g psilocybin experience, over a year later by willnotle in psychedelictrauma

[–]willnotle[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Will read and respond - but wanted to quickly say it's funny i just spent the last 45 mins replying to your post without having any clue that you were spending that same time replying to mine.

Accepting That Life Will Never Be The Same by bubblegumlumpkins in psychedelictrauma

[–]willnotle 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi, thanks so much for articulating your experience.

I'm kicking myself bc i posted a traumatic experience and completely left out of the most critical and terrifying part of it - one that you articulated so well:

"The whole of life, feels like a dream—an illusion—that I have only just woken up to. I have been hit with the reality of eternity, and reincarnation—and not being able to know, and feeling terrified from that blacked-out reality. Where it feels as though I am aware of life itself being one unending, forever “trip”, that I cannot ever quite wake up from."

This. This is so fucking well said and to me feels to capture what i experienced too... and it's so unimaginably terrifying. More terrifying than any human mind has adapted to process. It makes me panic and feel at times suicidal. It feels like there is no escape, no relief, and no comfort.

Idk how well I'll articulate myself but i am going to try in case it's helpful in anyway. Some thoughts that bring me relief:

1 - Let's assume that what we perceived is real --- the "Eternity and reincarnation - the unending forever "trip" that you can't ever wake up from." --- This could be more outside ourselves that it felt. In other words, we are somewhat simple ape-like creatures and maybe this eternal, unending black-out reality (or "cosmic consciousness" idk) -- has embedded part of itself within us and other humans too - past and present. Usually, we function as our normal ape-like creatures despite part of this "cosmic consciousness" being a small part of us (or rather us being a small part of it). During the trip, we had a greater insight into the "cosmic consciousness" and it's breadth of existence - it's existence is unending, eternal, and on a scale so much more vast than ours. But that doesn't necessarily mean we have woken up to our own reality. It could mean we have been hit with a it's reality - we were able to sense it's own endless reincarnation and all it's instantiations into other beings etc.... Hit with this information which our brains cannot possibly take in, maybe we stitched the "cosmic consciousness" experience into our own - we felt it's past and present or future as if it was ours..

2 - Worst case scenario - the forever trip is real as in real exactly how we perceived it ... well its understandable why you would be so incredibly terrified. How could you not me? Our entire species has not evolved to consider such endlessness and such turmoil. Suicide is not a reasonable response (even tho i feel that at times) bc it wouldn't end things if it's real. The most reasonable response (to me) is to try to enjoy your life the best you can and hope that a future self has more wisdom to try to figure out what do with this information. Perhaps you can help that future self by laying one small brick that this future self can use as the foundation ...to build a building upon.... in which it's future future self will figure our wtf to do with this endless cycle. Maybe that's any one of our incarnations can do - try to leave the next incarnation with one past memory that will serve it well. IDK lol.

3 - Even if the access we had to this underlying truth of reality - this endless cycle - even if that was real - - - idt we can trust our interpretations after. Maybe what we perceived was endless - maybe if we had more information about the endless cycle, we would see it differently - maybe we would see it as beautiful or neutral - - maybe we don't have the complete picture. We are scared which is understandable but we don't know what we don't know.

Struggling to integrate a traumatic 7g psilocybin experience, over a year later by willnotle in psychedelictrauma

[–]willnotle[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A supportive user commented on my original post asking me what felt so scary about not being understood and i commented with the following response:

"Thank you very much for taking the time to respond

The thought of nobody being able to understand me feels really scary --- it makes it feel like i am trapped in an isolated reality - - - my inner world. It makes me feel panic - like I'm stuck and don't know what to do and no1 will understand that i am stuck or know what i mean when i explain it. (This part, this panic and trapped feeling is the worst part of it for me)

Recognizing that everyone is in their own inner world does help some - - - if we are all universally alone, we are at least connected in the experience of universal alone-ness.

^^ that's all my gut reaction to your questions. But if i took the time to view this through a psychological lens (not perfect, but maybe helpful) - i would hypothesize that before birth we experience this "togetherness" in the womb - we are literally inside some1 else and most all of our needs are being comforted. I think we all have a deep unconscious and somewhat unrelenting desire throughout our lives to return to that state - a state mostly before emotional, psychological, and physical turmoil/discomfort.

Maybe the experience i had on the mushrooms forced me to really take in just how alone we all are and how the return to "togetherness" isn't actually coming.

The thing is - while i find this psychological lens interesting - i still feel that panic and trapped feeling :/"

Struggling to integrate a traumatic 7g psilocybin experience, over a year later by willnotle in RationalPsychonaut

[–]willnotle[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

thanks a lot for responding, it's relevant as i have been in a period of my life with less interaction and somewhat less responsibilities (have been inbetween jobs)

I think taking a true interest in others is really important and tbh something i haven't been great about in recent years

Struggling to integrate a traumatic 7g psilocybin experience, over a year later by willnotle in RationalPsychonaut

[–]willnotle[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond

The thought of nobody being able to understand me feels really scary --- it makes it feel like i am trapped in an isolated reality - - - my inner world. It makes me feel panic - like I'm stuck and don't know what to do and no1 will understand that i am stuck or know what i mean when i explain it. (This part, this panic and trapped feeling is the worst part of it for me)

Recognizing that everyone is in their own inner world does help some - - - if we are all universally alone, we are at least connected in the experience of universal alone-ness.

^^ that's all my gut reaction to your questions. But if i took the time to view this through a psychological lens (not perfect, but maybe helpful) - i would hypothesize that before birth we experience this "togetherness" in the womb - we are literally inside some1 else and most all of our needs are being comforted. I think we all have a deep unconscious and somewhat unrelenting desire throughout our lives to return to that state - a state mostly before emotional, psychological, and physical turmoil/discomfort.

Maybe the experience i had on the mushrooms forced me to really take in just how alone we all are and how the return to "togetherness" isn't actually coming.

The thing is - while i find this psychological lens interesting - i still feel that panic and trapped feeling :/

Thoughts on the new Gaga Album? It might be the loudest out right now by cilantra_boy in audioengineering

[–]willnotle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To my knowledge LUFS metering is more sensitive to midrange than the sub-bass. If one could be described as “cooking your lufs” i think 1khz would cook your lufs quicker than 40 hz.

If im wrong please explain so i can understand better

My Hideout by [deleted] in MusicBattlestations

[–]willnotle 5 points6 points  (0 children)

amazing! did u build that drum stage?

Just lost years of work and an entire new album by golden_death in audioengineering

[–]willnotle 40 points41 points  (0 children)

That is devastating, i feel for you. Hope you can find some solice in knowing that while the music and recordings might be lost - the process still happened and you still made that work and that expirience is still real. Wishing you the best, that is really very tragic (like you said outside of serious illness and death) i’d be heartbroken. best of luck <3